UH-Victoria professor sentenced to one year in federal prison in Kush money scheme

An assistant professor of finance at the University of Houston-Victoria was sentenced in Houston Tuesday to spend one year in federal prison for helping a Houston-area drug ring transfer the proceeds of a massive synthetic cannabinoid operation to bankers in Jordan.
U.S. District Judge Gray Miller granted Omar Maher Al Nasser leniency at the behest of a motion by his attorneys less

An assistant professor of finance at the University of Houston-Victoria was sentenced in Houston Tuesday to spend one year in federal prison for helping a Houston-area drug ring transfer the proceeds of a ... more

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An assistant professor of finance at the University of Houston-Victoria was sentenced in Houston Tuesday to spend one year in federal prison for helping a Houston-area drug ring transfer the proceeds of a massive synthetic cannabinoid operation to bankers in Jordan.
U.S. District Judge Gray Miller granted Omar Maher Al Nasser leniency at the behest of a motion by his attorneys less

An assistant professor of finance at the University of Houston-Victoria was sentenced in Houston Tuesday to spend one year in federal prison for helping a Houston-area drug ring transfer the proceeds of a ... more

UH-Victoria professor sentenced to one year in federal prison in Kush money scheme

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An assistant professor of finance at the University of Houston-Victoria was sentenced in Houston Tuesday to spend one year in federal prison for helping a Houston-area drug ring transfer the proceeds of a massive synthetic cannabinoid operation to bankers in Jordan.

U.S. District Judge Gray Miller granted Omar Maher Al Nasser leniency at the behest of a motion by his attorneys.

After completing his prison term, Al Nasser, 37, of Houston, was ordered to serve two years of supervised release and must pay a $10,000 fine. Federal prosecutors withdrew an additional charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Al Nasser, who has been in federal custody for nearly a year, remains employed at UH-Victoria but has been on leave without pay since Sept. 1, according to Paula Cobler, the university's director of marketing and communications. He began working for the college in 2008, she said.

He was slotted to teach a class on financial management at the school's Sugar Land campus at the time of his arrest in April. A magistrate judge declined to release him on bail.

Cobler said Wednesday that now that the college knows about his sentence, "UHV officials are considering action appropriate to the situation."

Al Nasser was one of 16 defendants arrested in one of the largest stings nationwide on the street drug known as Kush, a homemade chemical mix sprayed onto leafy material that is sold in some smoke shops and corner stores.

He pleaded guilty in December to aiding and abetting an unlicensed money transmitting business for the operation's proceeds that wired more than $200,000 from banks in the United States to accounts in Jordan.

Investigators linked Al Nasser to a major distributor of the drug in the Southern District of Texas, which includes Houston. The operation netted $35 million from more than 9.5 tons of kush.

Defense attorney Todd Ward told the judge that Al Nasser had no idea about the drug aspect of the operation.

Al Nasser had dabbled in day trading, according to Charles Duke, the attorney who represented him at his detention hearing, He said he did not think Al Nasser knew the other defendants and was duped into participating.

>>>Scroll through the above gallery for a primer on kush, what it is and what it does